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Sunday, January 31, 2016

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is set in upper class New York City during the 1870s.
It is an exploration of society, morals, character, conventionality and
conformity.

Newland Archer is a young man who is a free
thinker and a member of New York’s elite. He is a lover of art and literature. He
questions society’s conventions and is even critical of oppressive gender-based
expectations. He has a dynamic mind and personality, and he yearns for more than
what New York society is offering him.

At one point he ponders the society that he lives
in,

"In reality they all lived in a
kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even
thought”

The book opens with his engagement to May
Welland. Coinciding with the engagement is the return of Countess Ellen Olenska to New York society. Ellen is a woman fleeing Europe where she was
involved in an emotionally abusive marriage. The Countess is a person of depth
and substance. As the narrative progresses the attraction between her and Newland becomes increasingly apparent. Ellen
is a complex and brilliantly drawn character. She is a nonconformist who is
ethical and who displays an almost passive stoicism towards things that she
cannot change.

The pair’s esteem for one another grows and grows
until finally, before his marriage to May, Newland reveals his love to Ellen.
Though it becomes apparent that she also loves Newland, Ellen rebuffs his offer
for complex reasons, but partially because it would be unfair and detrimental to
May.

Newland goes on to marry May but continues to be obsessed
with Ellen. He eventually becomes bored and angry with May’s conventionality
and becomes depressed at the prospect of a long life with her. He continues to
attempt to connect with Ellen and eventually begins planning to run away with
her. However, he is ultimately rebuffed by Ellen for ethical reasons. In the
end, his efforts at freeing himself from society by running off with Ellen
prove to be fruitless.

The tragedy here is that due to social
obligations, Ellen and Newland can never be together. This book is essentially
a protest against the conventionality and dishonesty inherent in society as
well as the smothering restrictions that these things place upon people.

If this was all that there was to it, this book
would be a brilliant character study as well as a critique about the confining
nature of society and conventionality.

I think that there is something else that is at
least of moderate importance going on in this novel. There is a counterpoint playing alongside
Ellen and Newland’s relationship.

It would have been easy and natural if Wharton
had portrayed May as completely vacuous or malicious, but she is not. I get the
sense that Newland is underestimating her in some ways. Though she is no rebel
or free thinker and possesses multiple flaws, May shows some surprising
emotional intelligence. Before their marriage, suspecting that Newland is infatuated
with someone else, she offers to free him. This is an offer that Newland does
not take.

Later, she shows much tenderness toward Newland. After
her death, he finds out that she understood a surprising amount of things about
him in ways that he never suspected. It turns out that she empathized with some
of his pain.

Though she does scheme to keep Newland and Ellen
apart, can a wife, especially one living within the society depicted in this
book, be blamed for such actions? A perceptive reader cannot help but
sympathize with her just a little.

In the following passage, Wharton both
illustrates the problems that the couple are having while highlighting some of
May’s virtues,’

“May had shown a tendency to ask
him to read aloud whenever she saw him with a volume of poetry: not that he
disliked the sound of his own voice, but because he could always foresee her
comments on what he read. In the days of their engagement she had simply (as he
now perceived) echoed what he told her; but since he had ceased to provide her
with opinions she had begun to hazard her own, with results destructive to his
enjoyment of the works commented on.”

I also do not think that Newland’s behavior can be viewed as
completely virtuous. May gives him an escape before marriage, but he goes ahead
and marries her anyway. After the marriage, he continues his obsession and
pursuit of Ellen. At one point, he is prepared to abandon May and run off with
Ellen.

May and Newland represent a mini tragedy within
this novel. Near the book’s end, decades after the main events of the narrative
take place, it is revealed that May has died. The couple’s son, Dallas,
comments to Newland what his perception of his parents’ relationship was,

“You never did
ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You
just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A
deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact!”

Looking at May with some empathy and at Newland’s
behavior with a critical eye adds new dimensions to this work. I am not
claiming that this novel is not a cry against conventionality and the
shallowness of society, but perhaps Wharton is saying that such rebellion imposes
a cost to the rebels as well as to innocents.

A lesser writer would have made May less
sympathetic. Newland’s actions would have seemed a little more justified. By
endowing her with virtues, Wharton is adding levels of complexities to this
book. All this might muddle the theme a bit, but it raises the aesthetic
quality of this book by several notches.

This is a fantastic novel. The characters are complex
and a joy to read about. The plot is engaging. The writing is superb. Had the
plot and characters been more simplistic, this still would have been a very
worthy read, but by adding additional nuance, Wharton has fashioned a brilliant
novel. I highly recommend this work to anyone who generally likes novels of this
type.

Friday, January 22, 2016

From time to time, I will be blogging
about books relating to feminist themes. Some of my general thoughts on
feminism and the issue of violence directed at women are here.

Some of the statistics on eating
disorders included in the original version of this book were criticized as
being inaccurate. Wolfe has acknowledged the inaccuracies and the version of
the book that I read includes the corrected data.

Naomi Wolf is
an author and commentator. Over the years, she has weighed in on all sorts of
political and social issues. She is also a former adviser to President Bill
Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

In this work,
Wolf builds a complex and nuanced argument, supported by many pages of data and
examples, as well as philosophical musings. First, she argues that modern
society has created a false image of feminine beauty. This image is
restrictive. Beauty is not only subjective, but the vast majority of men and
women view sensual beauty as a much larger spectrum than that which is being
fed to the public.

At one point,
in a quote that I find to very insightful, she writes about men in regards to
this point,

"Many, many men see this way too. A man who wants to define
himself as a real lover of women admires what shows of her past on a woman’s
face, before she ever saw him, and the adventures and stresses that her body
has undergone, the scars of trauma, the changes of childbirth, her
distinguishing characteristics, the light in her expression. The number of men
who already see in this way is far greater than the arbiters of mass culture
would lead us to believe, since the story they need to tell ends with the
opposite moral. The Big Lie is the notion that if a lie is big enough, people
will believe it. The idea that adult women, with their fully developed array of
sexual characteristics, are inadequate to stimulate and gratify heterosexual
male desire, and that “beauty” is what will complete them, is the beauty myth’s
Big Lie. All around us, men are contradicting it. The fact is that the myth’s
version of sexuality is by definition just not true: Most men who are at this
moment being aroused by women, flirting with them, in love with them, dreaming
about them, having crushes on them, or making love to them, are doing so to
women who look exactly like who they are. The myth stereotyped sexuality into
cartoons by representation”

Wolf argues that
women in particular and society as whole have been programed and thus have
become obsessed with this false image of beauty.

I find that
Wolf’s arguments on this matter are very convincing and I am in strong
agreement with her here.

The author’s
next contention is that this Beauty Myth, and society’s obsession with it, is extremely
detrimental and oppressive towards women. In chapter after chapter, Wolf lays
out a case of how women are harmed by this myth. Not only does it narrowly and
falsely define beauty and sensuality, but it forces women into a no win
situation as they attempt to adhere to this myth in a supposed attempt to reach
success in multiple facets of life. She explores its economic, legal, social,
physical, psychological and emotional (In the area of emotion, she argues that
men have been oppressed, too) effects upon women. Wolf gets into a lot of
detail here as she explains both the expected and the unexpected ways that this
phenomenon has been an encumbrance upon women.

Though I do
not agree with all her arguments, when it comes to the big picture, Wolf
presents a very convicting case here. The information that she provides is
intricate, and some of her philosophical musings are complex and difficult to
convey in a single blog post. In one example, she illustrates how the legal
system has allowed all sorts of employers to discriminate against women based
upon their appearance and presumed attractiveness. I have taken several
business law and human resource related classes, and I was already familiar with
some of the cases that are presented here. I agree the results were outrageous
and harmful to society.

Some of
Wolf’s final conclusions seem to go into shakier territory. Wolf envisions
nearly utopian benefits if society dispensed with these falsehoods and
discrimination. She contends that men’s emotional connection to women is being
fouled and corrupted by the myth. Thus, if men resisted the myth, women and the
men who love them would begin to drive revolutionary change,

"But with the apparition of numbers of men moving into
passionate, sexual love of real women, serious money and authority could defect
to join forces with the opposition. Such love would be a political upheaval
more radical than the Russian Revolution and more destabilizing to the balance
of world power than the end of the nuclear age. It would be the downfall of
civilization as we know it— that is, of male dominance; and for heterosexual
love, the beginning of the beginning."

In terms of
these ultimate conclusions, I think that sexism is very complicated. While a
more inclusive and less obsessive societal view of beauty and sensuality would
be very beneficial to men and women, I think that the barrier that Wolf sees
between the sexes in terms of heterosexual love is exaggerated. This ‘joining
of forces’ to overthrow male dominance seems farfetched. There are other factors aside from The Beauty
Myth driving sexism and misogyny that need to be addressed separately. I
believe that society addressing these issues and that positive change will
continue, but at an evolutionary, not revolutionary pace.

This book
contains a lot of ideas. There are other arguments that I disagree with. In
particular, I found Wolf’s comparison between Nazi medical experiments and the
modern cosmetic surgical industry to be untenable and ill-considered.

I think that it
is important to note that Wolf is not advocating an abolition of all efforts of
women to enhance their beauty and/or sensuality. She goes on to extoll the joys
found in the efforts that people take in making themselves attractive and
sensual. She writes,

“what I support in this book is a woman’s right to choose
what she wants to look like and what she wants to be, rather than obeying what
market forces and a multibillion-dollar advertising industry dictate"

And later,

“we have to separate from the myth what it has surrounded
and held hostage: female sexuality, bonding among women, visual enjoyment,
sensual pleasure in fabrics and shapes and colors— female fun, clean and dirty.
We can dissolve the myth and survive it with sex, love, attraction, and style
not only intact, but flourishing more vibrantly than before. I am not attacking
anything that makes women feel good; only what makes us feel bad in the first
place. We all like to be desirable and feel beautiful.”

Though The Beauty
Myth is more than twenty years old, I should note that it has been somewhat
updated by the more recent introduction included in my edition as well as by
Wolf’s 2011 essay, A Wrinkle in Time,
which is available all over the Internet. Though parts of the book still seem a
little dated, the bulk of it, as well as its main contentions, still seem to be
relevant.

Despite my
quibbles with some of her points, I find most of Wolf’s arguments moderate and
reasonable. As I outlined above, I am in agreement with her on the majority of
her points.

This book is
bursting with insights and important points. I have only scratched the surface
in terms of Wolf’s arguments, and the detail in which she makes them. This book
delves into the nuts and bolts of our culture and how we view and deal with
gender and sensuality. Thus, this is an important book for both women and men
to read.

Friday, January 15, 2016

A Room with a View by E.M.
Forster is the story of Lucy Honeychurch. Like other works that I have read
from Forster, this is a story about people striving for and struggling to make human
connections. Having previously read both a Passage
to India and Howards End, I found
a lot of parallels in this book.

Lucy is full of life and beginning to appreciate the diversity inherent
in the world and in people. The novel opens in Florence, Italy, where she and her
friend Charlotte Bartlett are visiting as tourists. There she encounters a host
of other English travelers and expatriates.Among them are Mr. Emerson and his son George Emerson. The older of the
men is intelligent, dynamic and empathetic, but in the terminology of our
present day, he would be called verbally unfiltered. He speaks what is on his
mind to the consternation of the book’s more conservative characters. Thus, he is often a driver of major and minor events.
George is moody and depressed but is also philosophical.

Eventually Lucy and George become attracted to one another. Though she
will not admit it to herself, the pair falls in love. Socially, it seems that
the two would make an unacceptable couple due to the Emersons’ odd nature. Thus,
Lucy flees Florence in an attempt to get away from George.

Later in the narrative, Lucy returns home to England. Lucy becomes engaged
to Cecil Vyse, a man who is cultured and who is a lover of art and
literature. Unfortunately, Cecil is also priggish and stifling to Lucy. When George
moves into the same neighborhood that Lucy lives in, complications ensue.

Like Forster’s A Passage to India,
but to a much lesser degree, this novel contains several transcendental moments
for the characters. These moments revolve around the common theme of understanding
a certain meaningless to life and an ensuing leap to find meaning. However, unlike
A Passage to India, which contained
in depth metaphysical musings, this work only touched upon such higher
intellectualizing. My commentary on that novel is here. My opinion in regards to A Room with a View is that it presents a lot of ideas that were
present in Howards End as well as in A Passage to India, but that they are
less developed here. I remember that those books contained more sophisticated
musings relating to several themes, including Forster’s favorite, the value and
difficulty in striving for human connections.

Like I often do, I would like to devote a few words to a particularly
interesting and insightful, but fairly minor, point in the narrative.

After a talk with George, Lucy comes to understand that Cecil is boorish,
cold and a terrible match for her. She decides to break off the engagement.

As is illustrated in Howards End, as
well as in a Passage to India,
however, Forster is all about people with differences attempting to connect and
coexist. It turns out that Cecil is more thoughtful than is initially apparent.
At being informed by Lucy that she is breaking off the engagement, he responds,

"…I fell to pieces the very
first day we were engaged. I behaved like a cad... You are even greater than I
thought." …"I'm not going to worry you. You are far too good to me. I
shall never forget your insight; and, dear, I only blame you for this: you
might have warned me in the early stages, before you felt you wouldn't marry
me, and so have given me a chance to improve. I have never known you till this
evening. I have just used you as a peg for my silly notions of what a woman
should be. But this evening you are a different person: new thoughts— even a
new voice—"

Nothing like this came from Cecil earlier in text. However, it is apparent
that Lucy never voiced criticism of his behavior before. It seems that Forster
is illustrating the tragedy of missed opportunity here. It is not at all clear
that Cecil would be capable of change, and even if he were, Lucy is in love
with George. However, I think that Forster is leaving open the possibility that
he might have gained by constructive criticism. The author never depicts
connections as easy, and folks attempting to connect and understand what is
different often run into all kinds of trouble, as is illustrated in this failed
relationship. All of this adds so much complexity and nuance to this work.

This is a very worthwhile book. The themes, of which I have only
scratched the surface of above, are intriguing. Several of the characters,
including Lucy and the Emersons, are well crafted, complex and interesting. The
story is compelling. Though perhaps a little less far along in terms of
developed themes than Forster’s later novels. This is an entertaining and very
compelling book.

Friday, January 8, 2016

The term “identity politics” has become a dirty phrase in some quarters.
At the same time, there are many people who embrace the concept. Though
initially the connection may seem a little farfetched, I have of late been
thinking about how this phenomenon, in part, stems from the thinking of
America’s founders, particularly, James Madison.

First, I think it is important to clearly state what I mean by “identity
politics” since the term has different meanings for different people. For the
purposes of this post, I am defining the phrase “identity politics” to be the
advocacy of political and social agendas that pertain to specific groups, such
as African Americans, gays, transgender people, women, etc. In addition, regardless
of how folks feel about their motives and intents, I would also include groups
that now claim to be advocating for so-called privileged or dominant groups,
such as white people or men.

There has always been, as there is now, a backlash against identity
politics. While some of this backlash, particularly in today’s social media, is
nothing but racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc., there are legitimate arguments
against the existence of these movements based upon groups. The somewhat
popular cry, “Egalitarianism, not feminism” is but one example that I am very
familiar with. There are also folks who do not object to the existence of such
advocacy groups in principle, but who are extremely critical of specific
aspects of these movements. Furthermore, there are conflicts that have arisen
between various movements.

The arguments against identity politics are numerous and popular.
Critics point out that such movements divide, instead of unite, people. Often,
an argument is presented that it is better to work on good policies and beneficial
social change, regardless of the needs of specific groups. Others point out
that identity politics has fostered some terrible ideas that are harmful to
society or to competing groups.

What does all this have to do with James Madison? Surprisingly, the
philosophy and actions of this American founder were intimately related to
these issues. Furthermore, as the “father of the American Constitution,” Madison
was one of the architects of modern societies that foster such movements.

An integral part of Madison’s social and political belief system
revolved around the concept that many diverse belief systems could come
together to form strong and meritorious ideological governmental and social
systems. Madison argued that these conflicting systems would at times
counterbalance and at other times complement one another, leading to a strong
society and a strong republic. Ralph Ketcham, a biographer of Madison, wrote in
regards to Madison’s view that special interest groups,

“would preserve freedom rather
then threaten it, because no one interest would control government; each
interest – economic, religious, sectional, or whatever – would be a natural
check on the domineering tendencies of others. Madison made a virtue of human
diversity and neutralized the selfishness of mankind.”

Madison laid out the details of this philosophy in Federalist
Paper Number 51. To this day, this treatise serves as a compelling argument for
a society where various factions contend and compete with one another. In it he
wrote,

“society itself will be broken into so
many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals,
or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of
the majority.”

I would be remiss if I did not point out that Madison did not have
in mind the diverse ethnic, gender-based and lifestyle-based groups that exist
in the twenty-first century. He was instead confronted with a world where
various economic and religious interests competed with one another. Thus, there
are differences in regards to the nature of the “interests” that Madison was
talking about and some of today’s advocacy. However, the same dynamics as to
how these groups advocate for their interests and compete with one another apply
now as they did then.

In contrast, many of America’s founders, such as George
Washington, felt that the best way for a society to function was to stay away
from partisanship. That virtuous people would advocate for what is right
without banding into factions. In his farewell address, George Washington
declared,

The alternate domination of one faction
over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension,
which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid
enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.

Washington’s view of an America without strong factionalism did not prevail,
and Madison’s idea that multiple interest groups competing for influence became
a permanent fixture in American society as well as in the societies of
democracies.

I would argue that history has shown that Madison was exactly
right. All sorts of societal improvements, including those relating to human
rights and justice, have thrived because individual interest groups have
advocated for their interests while in competition with other interest groups. These
groupings allow people to organize around very good ideas and effectively
promote change. Often these interest groups are based on race, ethnicity,
gender, etc.

There is, of course, a downside. Sometimes, these social justice movements
push for ideas and policies that are not beneficial. These groups sometimes
advocate for things that are detrimental to society as well as to other groups.
Extremists and other forms of excess often drive the agenda of such groups. As
someone who follows both social and political issues, I agree that many of
these groups, such as feminists, antiracist groups, etc., at times foster some
very ill-founded ideas that would be very bad for society. Frankly, some ideas
that are coming out of movements that are based on such politics are downright
awful and are in fact racist or sexist against other groups. This however, was certainly true of the factions that existed in Madison's time. This is why it is important that competing
groups, as well as general conservative critics, exist to keep excesses in
check.

Advocating for a vague notion of “equality” or “egalitarianism”
rarely, if ever, has yielded results. The absence of interest groups means a lot
less organization. Without such organization, change is nearly impossible. Furthermore,
there are honest disagreements as to what is beneficial and just. If all that there
was were millions of individuals expressing their views on equality and justice,
with no coherent unifying themes, change would be nearly impossible, as would the
coherent criticism of bad ideas.

American examples of the benefit of these groupings abound. The
abolition of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, equality for women and marriage
equality are just some examples of social progress driven by these groups. In my opinion, history has shown that, in the
long run, the best ideas win out in free societies. I like the term ‘marketplace
of Ideas”.The proliferation of interest groups, as well as groups organized to counter these groups, are what makes up the marketplace.

Madison is often called the Father of the American Constitution.
Indeed, he had more influence in the composition of the final document than anyone
else. In its balance of powers and elected representation, he helped create a government
in which such a society that is characterized by competing groups will thrive.

Madison seemed to understand this formula so well. Though he would
likely be baffled and astonished by today’s debates on social issues, he was,
ironically, one of the architects of the system of discourse and debate that characterizes
so much of our modern society. I would argue that the great social progress
that Western Society has experienced over the past 150 years has been the
result of this competition between interests that Madison both created and foresaw.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Babbling
Books is four years old today! When I started out, I had only a vague idea of
where this blog would go.Four years
later, I find myself very satisfied with the direction that my site has taken.
I am also very happy about the fact that I am interacting with all sorts of
bright and interesting bookish people.

Thus,
my first order of business, as I have done on past anniversaries, is to express
appreciation the wonderful blogging community with whom I regularly interact. I
have met so many interesting and intelligent fellow bloggers. I must thank all
of those who have commented on Babbling Books over the years.

Contemplating
the past four years, I am struck by how much about blogging has improved the
way that I think. I touch upon all sorts of social, political, scientific and
other subjects in my posts. I have always thought a lot about these subjects and
have held lots of opinions on them.
Putting my thoughts about these topics into words has done so much to
refine my outlook. Writing about these matters has made me think even more
deeply about them. Thinking in such detail has helped me to understand the
nuances and complexities that I otherwise might have missed. It has also made
me more likely to contemplate competing ideas. As an added bonus, I now have a
permanent and ongoing record of my thoughts on these various subjects.

As
2016 begins, I am looking forward to another year of sharing my thoughts on engaging
books and concepts. I am also looking forward to more fruitful interactions with
the bookish folk of the Internet.